ose of the war. It was notorious, they said, that the foreign enemy
was abetted by too many traitors at home; and, at such a time, the
severity of the laws which protected the commonwealth against the
machinations of bad citizens ought not to be relaxed. It was at
last determined that the new regulations should take effect on the
twenty-fifth of March, the first day, according to the old Calendar, of
the year 1696.

On the twenty-first of January the Recoinage Bill and the Bill for
regulating Trials in cases of High Treason received the royal assent. On
the following day the Commons repaired to Kensington on an errand by
no means agreeable either to themselves or to the King. They were, as
a body, fully resolved to support him, at whatever cost and at whatever
hazard, against every foreign and domestic foe. But they were, as indeed
every assembly of five hundred and thirteen English gentlemen that could
by any process have been brought together must have been, jealous of the
favour which he showed to the friends of his youth. He had set his heart
on placing the house of Bentinck on a level in wealth and splendour with
the houses of Howard and Seymour, of Russell and Cavendish.

Some of the fairest hereditary domains of the Crown had been granted to
Portland, not without murmuring on the part both of Whigs and Tories.
Nothing had been done, it is true, which was not in conformity with the
letter of the law and with a long series of precedents. Every English
sovereign had from time immemorial considered the lands to which he had
succeeded in virtue of his office as his private property. Every family
that had been great in England, from the De Veres down to the Hydes,
had been enriched by royal deeds of gift. Charles the Second had carved
ducal estates for his bastards out of his hereditary domain. Nor did the
Bill of Rights contain a word which could be construed to mean that the
King was not at perfect liberty to alienate any part of the estates of
the Crown. At first, therefore, William's liberality to his countrymen,
though it caused much discontent, called forth no remonstrance from the
Parliament. But he at length went too far. In 1695 he ordered the Lords
of the Treasury to make out a warrant granting to Portland a magnificent
estate in Denbighshire. This estate was said to be worth more than a
hundred thousand pounds. The annual income, therefore, can hardly
have been less than six thousand pounds; and the annual r